Friday, July 30, 2010

Scissors Beats Paper

Well have fun watching my shortest battle report ever. 1850 versus FNP assault marines.You really don't need to watch the video to see what happens, but the marine players will find it funny.

I thought, maybe I will castle up with kroot surrounding my stuff then some fire warriors then some juicy bits in the center. To top it all off it was kill points and spearhead. Jawesome.

It doesn't matter how many models on the table you have if you can alpha strike one unit with your entire army and that one unit doesn't die. Here's what shotShadowsun2x 3 Crisis with fusion and plasma2x 2 Broadsides team leader in each unit had twin linked plasma10 Kroot (Only 6 were in range though)Hammerhead Submunitions2x 6 firewarriors10 markerlights from pathfinders

so I guess my WHOLE army did not shoot at them, I was missing 1 unit of 6 firewarriors.

Have fun with the steel drums.

My tactic to "kill everything" worked awesome

Also did not know you can multi-charge through one unit to get to a unit behind it. So when he charged my kroot he was also able to multi-charge my firewarriors right behind the kroot.

Stay mobile! Maybe I should go back to my all mech list with no broadsides :(

18 comments:

I'm sorry you lost so bad! The Tau has two things going for them that make them stand out against other armies: mobility and customizable weapons. When fighting Blood Angels, they are matching or bettering the Tau mobility. :(

You're right, you've got to stay mobile. I know Spearhead is difficult, but you might want to try OSH's two firebases strategy. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I7KwPOS68TY

I've fought Blood Angels often. As they quickly come at you, you want to jet pack around to their flanks. I like the Tau strategy of making the enemy come to us, but as they do, you've got to keep moving around. Keep Fire Warriors in Devilfish, move the Devishfish 12" kind of behind the enemy and then get tons of rapid fire on them! This will slow down the enemy because they have to move backwards to assault you.

Pray that they wipe out your units on THEIR turn. Then when it's your turn, their unit is no longer in combat and can be totally shot at.

Good choices on the plasma and fusion. Goodbye FNP! When you know you are going to fight marines, I suggest taking the Ion Cannon on the Hammerhead. If you have them, also take some Sniper Drones. You can't have enough AP3 against marines.

These are some tips I have learned when fighting BAs. I humbly submit them for your consideration.

If the firewarriors fish of fury, a squad of 12 statistically could kill 2.5 marines, but that does not take in to account feel no pain saves. I will only get one round of fish of fury because once they are out in the open they will get assaulted. Even a couple marines can beat an entire unit of firewarriors in CC. Plus I am spending 205 points per unit on a lot of shooting that doesn't get around +3 armor or FNP. Fusion and Plasma are awesome if you can hit with them.

I do have ion cannon turrets and a full set of 9 sniper drones. The sniper drones have no mobility though so if he wants he can drop down right next to them, I can always pray for a pin though.

I was not super surprised by this battle, my current army just isn't built to fight it. I could go more mobile, but with jump packs and running he is still going to catch me. I could go massive amount of fire, but since they deep strike in I will only get one turn of shooting before he starts chewing up my lines. And as evidenced by the battle report, I cannot rely on being able to kill one unit even with two full teams of anti-marine goodness.

Trying to get them to split up where they are assaulting is a good point though, that way they will be more isolated at least.

I just wanted to have the battle report up so I can see what other people think or hear what they would do with the army list they usually use, not one specifically geared to fight this list, but what you would do with your tournament list against this army. Non-Tau player input appreciated as well (sarafanknight...)

Deathrain Shas'el with Stimulant injector6 firewarriors2 squads of 10 kroot3 Ionheads3 units of 3 XV9s with Fusion Cascades, shield generators and 2 shield drones (just one in each team has the drone controller the other 2 team members have shield gens.)

Rough!Blood Angels players are getting to the point where they've learned how to play the new codex and it is killer for Tau. I've never faced an FNP Jump Army but I am sure, I would probably lose quickly. Codex-creep is a bitch these days.

@OSHYup it is rough, but it could be worse, I could be playing Necrons :)

Not too worried about losing with a behind edition codex. I am glad I am getting all my practicing in now to see what everyone is doing with the metagame. When the Tau codex eventually comes out then I can be the bastard with the silly codex ;)(no offense pavonis :D)

If the creep keeps going the last army released is going to be ridiculous.

I honestly thought Krox was going to split firebases because we had talked about it last time we played. If Krox had done that with an Annihilation mission, my battle plan was to put my full force against one side leaving almost half his army unable to shoot me. I don't need to wipe out every unit, just get more kill points. Then I was planning on putting my vanguard vets out front with the stormshields and hide the rest of my assault marines behind them for a 4+ cover save and wait out the turns or jump across the board.OSH has some great ideas, and against a mech army or more elite army (aka: lower model count), it would work really well.When I put together this army list, it was because I wanted to learn how to play assault marines right and what better way than make a whole army of them. I would like to note that I played CSM right before this game and they tabled me (talk about scissor getting smashed by rock). I'll post that battle report over on my blog soon.Oh, and no offense taken. Once your codex comes out, it'll be your turn and I will be trying to figure out how to beat your army. Heh.

I wish I had some great advice for ya krox, but the whole game I was looking at what you were doing thinking, 'yep, that's the best plan.' I guess if you were to try that strat again, you could put a little more space between your rows, or crowd your lines closer together so he can only assault one squad at a time, since it was the multi charges that killed you so fast.Any way to add some seeker missles? AP3 and insta-kill so no FNP. Plague marines and nugle bikers hate them, so why not BA?

@PavonisThat was a gg. I'll comment more on your blog, but don't forget, you were dangerously close to winning had it ended on turn 5 and I didn't kill your last troop with a bolter from my Rhino :)

Yea Krox, I think spacing them apart more, but less that 7" open space between things (I want 4" on either side to make law of averages on my 1d6 DS. Also, putting kroot 7" out from vehicles would have kept me out of melta range for my alpha DS turn. Then you could have accordianed in to keep me from jumping over you. I planned my assaults pretty well where I was pulling a unit from the side to open a gap to the next layer.@SarafanKnight - You are right. I was just wondering if I hadn't separated Dante from that squad, I would have been able to soak 1 wound from the 3x plasma cannon and then the last shot that took out my last guy, I would have been able to soak that with Dante too, likely leaving 2 troop models to keep the objective for the win. Hind sight is always 20/20. ;) Great game and learning experience!

How to lose 1750pt game in 5 mins with one dice roll...which you won !!!

Okay we have a Russian Space Marine all Bike Army playing against a TAU armyRussian player wins rolloff for first turn, picks a side and then decides to put his whole army in reserve.TAU player then places his infiltrating Kroot all along the Russian players board edge.Result...the Bike army cannot enter the table.....Game over

I think 24 Kroot. They can be two inches apart between models in a squad. If more than one squad, you may need to squish the end units so a base cannot fit between them.I heard the Kroot do that at the final table at a GT and the opponent reserved everything and had deep strikers but didn't elect to deep strike.